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And now it is spring again, new leaves grow from this more then 10 years old kozo trunk; it is a very local kozo variety. This kozo grows in front of the stone wall, it is probably there warm compared to the fields where the other trees grow and therefor quite early.
New bamboo sprouts grow fast; delicious when in the oven with chees, cooked with rice, in curry , or just with wasabi and shoyu and more and more…..And if they grow too tall, two- three years later they become great building material or after dried well firewood. I almost forgot, when the new sprout has about two is three branches you can also make paper from it……
Four different shades of color of scraped off/cleaned kozo bark.
For the delicate papers white bark, for the more strong and “wild” varieties the most green one.
Only now, for a week or so, only once a year in spring, you can watch and enjoy this beautiful palette of green colors.
This year’s “golden week” Ginza Matsuya departmentstore’s roofterrace washi workshop was a success. Thanks for enjoying papermaking together.
The old way, sun bleaching; the power of the sun. Now in may the sunshine has become stronger but the constantly streaming water is still cool. The kozo fiber bleaches clearly visible in about 4 hours; still green at the left, already more white at the right. Paperfiber prepared in this way will make paper that will become more white ( instead of brown) when exposed to sunlight ; for example when used for shoji sliding doors.
Before it gets too warm some more nagashisuki papermaking with my wonderful seicho-size mound/ grass screen( 39 cm by 103 cm; in the past used for paper for administration books and later on for conservation purpose) with bits of red kozo outer bark for shoji sliding doors; and we were just in time, with this beautiful clear blue sky and strong sunshine to dry the steamed- roasted and rolled tea leaves; They say that we will have rain the coming tree days……
Mi-Tsu-Ma-Ta
For this piece I used mulberry fiber (the leaves are beeing used for feeding silkworms, not kozo which is the Japanese variety of the paper mulberry) and organic cottonthreat pulp made in my Hollander beater.
Still making paper this spring, this time for fusuma slidingdoors. This paper has brown-red outerdark included and a slightly green color. They are about 50 gms a sheet.
